


The Force Between Us

by kayclandestine



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 08:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17382845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayclandestine/pseuds/kayclandestine
Summary: “I’ve already spoken to one of my best students about being a peer tutor for you.” Mr. Bennett hands the piece of paper out to Ryan. “And quite frankly, if I were you, I’d start today. He’ll meet you in here by three.”Ryan nods his head, taking the piece of paper and looking down at the name.Shane Madej.





	The Force Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> A high school AU where Shane tutors Ryan in physics, and Ryan falls for him like gravity. 
> 
> I just started watching Buzzfeed Unsolved two months ago when my sister showed me one episode (Goatman's Bridge), but now I’m so gone for this show and these two. Just wanted to write something cute and simple. WARNING: There are two scenes of minor bullying in case that may be upsetting to anyone (only derogatory term used is 'loser'). Unbeta’d so all mistakes are my own. Also it’s been over ten years since I took physics, so I had to do a lot of research to incorporate the concepts in here, so I’m sorry if I got anything wrong, I tried! Hope you enjoy!

“Are you being serious?” Ryan asks.

He drops down into the nearest chair, his backpack sagging onto the floor in front of him, his exam face down on the desk so that he can’t see the red, underlined ‘52’ starring back at him.

“Unfortunately,” Mr. Bennett starts, putting his pen down and looking over his glasses at Ryan. He had pulled Ryan aside before the period had even started and asked him to stay for a word after class, so Ryan had been pretty sure that something was coming in his direction. 

None of his thinking had prepared him for this. 

“Yes, Mr. Bergara, I’m being very serious.”

“I can’t play basketball if I have a C in any of my classes.” Ryan drops his head into his hands, his elbows balanced on his knees.

He’s always considered himself a decent student - not straight A’s by any means, but a solid 3.3 GPA with an A- in honors calculus and a B in Spanish. Plus, he’s killing it with his first ever A in English - but that’s mainly because they’ve been reading cool gothic shit like Frankenstein and Dracula, instead of the period love stories he suffered through as a freshman and sophomore.

But physics has been a bitch to him since day one of senior year, and even though he likes Mr. Bennett, something about the entire subject has just never clicked with him, and now it’s going to keep him from basketball.

Fucking perfect.

“Trust me, Ryan, this is not my first year of teaching, and you are not the first athlete I’ve had in my class. And you are most definitely not the first athlete whose been benched because of my class, either.”

Ryan finally tares his hands away from his face and picks up his exam, leaning back in his chair and flipping through the pages to try to see what he got wrong. There’s so much red pen everywhere on every page, he doesn’t know where to start.

He folds the paper in half and shoves it into his backpack instead. Ryan stands as determinedly as he can manage with how shitty he feels, takes a deep breath and meets Mr. Bennett’s gaze. He’s never been a quitter, never not worked for anything he’s gotten in his life, and he’s definitely not going to let physics take the starting spot on the team from him.

“What can I do to fix it?”

Mr. Bennett starts rummaging around his desk, scrambling around for a piece of scrap paper that he starts scribbling on.

“I’ve already spoken to one of my best students about being a peer tutor for you. I recommend the two of you meet every day after school. This is his name - you guys are welcome to work in here, unless there’s another location you two can agree on.”

Mr. Bennett hands the piece of paper out to Ryan.

“And quite frankly, if I were you, I’d start today. He’ll meet you in here by three.”

Ryan nods his head, taking the piece of paper and looking down at the name.

Shane Madej.

**********

Ryan has to stop by the gym after school to talk to his coach and tell the guys on the team he didn’t see during the day that he’s benched. It’s his third year playing varsity; he’d gotten moved up as a sophomore, the only player in his entire class to do so – he remembers the day his junior varsity coach had called him into his office and told him, how it had been one of the best days of his life. Finally, all of the hours of practice, running drills in his driveway and working out by himself to make up for in skill what he lacked in height, had paid off.

But having to sit and tell his coach that he was benched because he’s got a C in physics? Without a doubt, one of the worst.

By the time he’s on his way out of the locker room, he’s running fifteen minutes late to when he was supposed to meet up with his peer tutor. He’s not exactly running there to make up the lost time, either - not exactly looking forward to being lectured for another hour on a subject that he hates.

Ryan tries to keep reminding himself it’s what he has to do to get back on the team, that the suffering through extra physics now will pay off when his grade is up and he’s back on the court.

It only half works.

Ryan had concluded shortly after he’d left Mr. Bennett’s class earlier that day that he’d never met anyone named Shane Madej in his life - the name didn’t sound familiar, and he doubts anyone that he associates with are any of the best physics students in the school.

When he enters Room 19, there’s only one person there, and he’s sitting by himself in one of the desks, his head bent over a massive textbook, and he’s definitely not anyone Ryan’s ever spoken to, maybe not any student he’s ever seen before. Ryan wouldn’t label himself as popular or any irrelevant shit like that, but there’s a certain amount of attention you get when you help lead your team to the state championships, and there’s a lot of people who say hi to him and give him high -fives in the hallway, so many that Ryan barely even makes eye contact with all of them after awhile. 

But Ryan’s pretty sure this kid isn’t someone who cares to acknowledge his contributions to their school’s basketball prowess. 

First off, he’s tall; Ryan can tell even though he’s sitting down that he’s easily over six feet - his legs are stretched out so far in front of him they hit the front of Mr. Bennett’s desk. He’s wearing an orange plaid shirt and glasses, and Ryan is pretty sure that the neon green t-shirt he’s wearing underneath has the periodic table on it.

“Uh, sorry I’m late,” Ryan says, awkwardly standing by the door and tapping his fist against the door frame. Shane doesn’t even look up at him. “Had to stop by practice and talk to my coach.”

Shane shrugs, turning a page with long fingers. “No problem, it’s not my physics’ grade.”

Ryan pauses, not sure if Shane is being an asshole or just stating the (unfortunate) obvious. He doesn’t look phased or bothered, still hasn’t even looked up from his textbook, so Ryan figures it’s the latter and stays still for another second before moving and sitting down at the lab table next to him.

Shane still doesn’t look up – one of his legs is bouncing up and down so insistently that it’s jostling the desk, and he keeps on making these sounds like he’s agreeing with what he’s reading. 

Ryan has another moment to wonder what the hell planet this kid was dropped off from when he finally starts speaking. 

“I don’t charge for tutoring. The administration thinks I should, and Mr. Bennett thinks I should, but the Internet says it’s weird to have friends pay you for helping them, and my mom thinks I shouldn’t charge people at school anything, even though she says I could be working a job in a coffee shop or a grocery store instead and earning some money, but I don’t think I would be very good at those jobs, so I won’t charge you.”

“Friends?” Ryan asks, because he definitely doesn’t remember meeting this guy ever, and he definitely doesn’t think their interaction so far is the beginning of a blossoming friendship.

“I don’t have friends, but my mom thinks I could have friends, and she says having them give me money won’t help me make any, because apparently she thinks that ship hasn’t sailed. So I don’t charge for tutoring.”

“Okay,” Ryan says, because he’s not sure what else there is to say. 

“So Newton’s Laws of Motion - that’s what your first exam was on, right?” He doesn’t even wait for Ryan to answer. “Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion. The first states how objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by a force. The second law states that force equals mass times acceleration. The third states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. All together, they describe the relationship between a body and the forces that act upon it.” Shane finally looks up, and they make eye contact for the first time. His eyes look huge behind his glasses; they’re two sizes too big for his face. “Who in this school would you most like to have sex with?”

“What?” Ryan chokes on the air he’s breathing, so hard he thinks he might suffocate and die in his physics classroom. 

“I can’t do the Heimlich, if you’re going to need that,” Shane says, not looking phased or concerned in the slightest. “I could tell someone else how to do it, but I don’t think I could do it myself – coordination is not my strong point.”

“Why do you need to know who I would have sex with?” Ryan asks, trying to cough and clear his throat.

“For physics,” Shane responds, like it’s obvious. He doesn’t wait for Ryan to start breathing normally again. “The name of one person, just one person in this entire school you’d like to have sex with.”

“Can’t you just, like...explain what the textbook says to me and give me some equations, and we’ll go from there?” Ryan asks, trying to ignore the question. 

“We could try, but that’s what Mr. Bennett does in class,” Shane replies, which is (unfortunately) true. “And that doesn’t seem to work out too well for you, no offense, but our mutual presence here supports that. So, this brings us back to sex.”

“Pretty sure that’s not going to help raise my physics grade,” Ryan replies, avoiding eye contact by focusing on some of the words that have been scribbled on top of the lab desk. The word ‘DICK’ is there, carved in to the wood so deeply he’s not sure how a teacher hasn’t seen it. 

“You’d be surprised,” Shane says. His expression hasn’t changed, but there’s a lift at the corner of his mouth now. “Trust me. One person.” 

“I can't believe you're really making me answer this,” Ryan replies, finally, looking away as he tries to come up with someone, anyone. In for a penny, in for a pound, or whatever the hell the expression is. He doesn’t think his physics grade could get any worse. “Patrick Colton, I guess.”

“Ah, Patrick Colton. You're not the first person I've tutored who's said that. Long-hair, the whole vampire aesthetic - he's the allure of boys and girls alike. So one day, you’re getting your books from your locker after school, and you haven’t been on a date with anyone in months, so you haven’t had any sex, and then one day Patrick Colton comes up to you, and he asks you on a date, and at the end of this the two of you have sex, and then every week you go on a date, and you have sex with Patrick Colton. If you’re at rest, you stay at rest, until there’s a force. Once there’s a force, like Patrick Colton, and you’re in motion, you stay in motion.”

Ryan nods, even though is brain is stuck on the fact that he’d never thought he’d hear the word ‘sex’ so much in a physics lesson. He wonders if Mr. Bennett has any other top physics students that are looking to tutor; he’s more than willing to pay. 

“So think about this question - what net force is required to keep a 67 kilogram object, similar to yourself, moving with a constant velocity?”

And fuck Shane, seriously, because Ryan thinks for a moment, and then says, “None, because, if I’m already moving, then I just keep moving.”

“Exactly,” Shane says. “That’s Newton’s first law of motion, and that’s a lot of sex for you.”

And when Shane smiles at him, a little hesitant at first, Ryan can’t help but get struck by how gorgeous it is.

**********

They’re in the second week of tutoring when Shane asks Ryan to meet him at the tennis courts.

Ryan hasn’t really spent any time on the tennis courts in his first two years of high school, and it definitely wasn’t where he was expecting to go to be learning physics. But Ryan hadn’t argued when Shane had insisted, because Shane has suggested a lot of ways of learning physics that have actually made sense to him. Shane is already outside when Ryan’s heading out there, holding a tennis racket like he’s not sure what he’s doing with it. 

“Newton’s third law,” Shane starts, as Ryan drops his backpack down on the concrete, “states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” He takes a tennis ball out of his jacket pocket. “It’s the law of karma.”

Ryan takes the racket, and hits the ball when Shane bounces it towards him. It hits the concrete wall and comes back in his direction; Ryan catches it in his fist. “I bounced the ball toward you – your racket hit the ball, but the ball also hit your racket. Now, your swing is a lot stronger than my bounce, for obvious and muscular reasons,” Shane makes a gesture in his direction, at some point having noticed that Ryan spends a decent amount of time in the gym, while Shane probably spends most of his time with his face buried in various textbooks. “But which force was greater?”

Ryan thinks for a moment, throwing the tennis ball back and forth between his fists, barely having to look as he catches it in each palm. “Neither? They were equal and opposite.”

“Correct. Now, it’s your fourth date with Patrick Colton, and after the two of you have a wonderful time at the movies, he decides to give you a blowjob.”

“I swear, dude, I have never thought about sex this much in my life,” Ryan says. He’s gotten used to how Shane tries to apply different concepts to real life situations to make it (slightly) more interesting; somehow he always manages to find a way to work sex in somewhere and get him to pay attention. That ability in itself deserves some recognition in Ryan’s own opinion.

“You’re a seventeen-year-old male,” Shane replies, a small curve at the corner of his mouth. “I honestly doubt that.”

**********

Ryan doesn’t start looking for Shane around school or anything like that – he’s too busy with his own friends and his own classes, but he guesses since he knows him now, he starts noticing if he’s around and if he’s not. He’s not surprised he’s never noticed Shane before – he’s tall, and skinny, and his legs are so long he takes one step for Ryan’s two. Ryan never sees him with anyone; he figures out they have the same lunch period, and Shane’s normally sitting at a table by himself, if there are any empty tables, and if there aren’t, he seems to pack his food in his backpack and exit the cafeteria as fast as possible.

School has never been that way for Ryan. Being on the basketball team is like traveling in a pack; there are always guys orbiting around him, before homeroom and in between classes, and they sit at the same table day after day – it’s always empty and waiting for them when they show up in the cafeteria for their lunch period every day, even if the other tables are so full that other students have to leave and eat on the bleachers in the gym.

The one day Ryan finally sees Shane interacting with anyone, it’s some asshole Ryan recognizes from the football team who’s dropping Shane’s backpack into a garbage can.

Ryan had been in the middle of a conversation with TJ, but he zones out while he starts debating if he should do anything. But before he does, the kid – Ryan can’t even remember his name – keeps walking, and Shane just reaches in the garbage to pull his backpack out and sling it over his shoulders again, acting like this isn’t the first time it’s happened, like this isn’t unusual in the slightest. 

Ryan figures it isn’t. 

**********

Ryan learns that Shane doesn’t actually live in his town. His parents pay to send him to this public school because the advanced placement program is so good, and it has a great reputation among some decent colleges. His mother picks him up every day when they finish whatever lesson Shane has orchestrated for them that day; Ryan normally walks home with a few of his friends, who get out of basketball practice around the same time. 

Ryan asks why his parents didn’t send him to a private school, one with uniforms and chess clubs and everything else you need for a successful future. 

“They thought the social development of a public high school would be more beneficial,” Shane says, not making eye contact as he writes out a physics riddle for Ryan to solve. He’s big into that shit too; he thinks it’s more interesting than just doing practice questions out of the textbook.

Ryan nods his head. He guesses he can’t argue with their logic, even if it’s definitely not working out for Shane the way his parents had probably hoped. 

**********

“What else are you interested in? Other than sex and basketball,” Shane asks one day as he slips his physics book into his backpack. Every day he’s had a different activity for Ryan to do that demonstrates the different physics principles: they’ve used balloons to look at Archimedes’ principle and cards to show static equilibrium. Shane’s even brought them to the chem lab a few times to mess around (Ryan’s words, not Shane’s) with the Bunsen burners and explain angular momentum and atmospheric pressure. 

“Uh, I don’t know,” Ryan says, because school and basketball admittedly take up a lot of his time, and thinking about sex takes up a lot of the rest of it. “I saw this tv special about this place Tombstone, Arizona last night, a town that’s haunted by these guys who died in a gunfight? That seemed pretty awesome.”

“Wait a second,” Shane says, pushing his glasses higher up on his nose so he can see Ryan better; it immediately magnifies his eyes to two times their normal size. “Haunted by what?”

“Uh, ghosts?” Ryan says, because he’s pretty sure the answer is obvious. Especially to Shane, who he can (begrudgingly) admit is probably one of the smartest people he’s ever met in his life.

“You think ghosts are real?” Shane asks. His expression is skeptical at best.

“Yes,” Ryan says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “You don’t?”

“Of course I don’t. Ghosts aren’t real - it’s physically impossible.”

“You’re only saying that because of science,” Ryan replies. He thinks it’s a pretty valid statement. He understands how science is like, legitimate and all that, but ghosts are a separate thing entirely. “Have you ever been anywhere haunted?”

“No, I haven’t been anywhere haunted, because ghosts aren’t real to haunt any place I’ve ever been.”

“Ghosts are real, dude,” Ryan responds. He can’t believe he has to argue this point with someone who’s taken college-level classes three years early. “There’s so much proof out there.”

Shane actually closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I can’t even start to have this conversation with you.”

Ryan laughs so hard at Shane’s obvious outrage he thinks he might start to cry.

**********

Ryan comes to their lesson the next day with a shit ton of papers he printed out in the school library that proves the existence of ghosts (there’s a lot of visuals, which he admit would’ve looked a lot better if they were allowed to print anything in color). He drops them on top of Shane’s physics textbook while his head is buried in it, and the sound is so loud he practically jumps out of his chair.

Shane raises his eyebrows; he does not look as impressed as Ryan thinks he should. 

“It’s futile for you to try and start this conversation,” he says, even as his fingers start to lift some of the pages carefully, like they’re covered in something that Shane wants no part in touching. “I’m going to resist acknowledging it.”

“Resistance is not futile,” Ryan says, dropping down in the chair next to Shane. “It’s voltage divided by current.”

“A physics joke?” Shane asks, his voice dripping with such awe Ryan thinks he could start blushing.

“There could be a lot more where that came from,” Ryan replies, feeling pretty pleased with himself when Shane actually laughs.

Even when he realizes he may mean it in more ways than one.

**********

“Are you lying that you don’t believe ghosts are real because you’re afraid of them?” Ryan asks. Shane currently has him balancing and flicking a ruler on the edge of their lab table in some way of demonstrating vibration frequency.

“Pay attention to the ruler,” Shane says, as he continues writing something on a piece of paper. “No, I’m afraid of a lot of things, but ghosts are not one of them.”

“So what are you afraid of?” Ryan asks, increasing the amount of ruler that’s balanced on the table, and flicking the free end again. The sensation feels strange under his fingers.

“I think we’re supposed to be talking about vibrations,” Shane says, looking over at him. “How does the vibration frequency change by how much ruler is on the table?”

“It changes by how long the ruler is, like how much of the ruler is on the table.” Ryan flicks it again. “When there’s more ruler off the table, it vibrates more slowly, and the vibration feels really dull.”

“That’s because the molecules in the air push together less often, making lower frequency pressure waves,” Shane replies. He pulls one of the salt shakers from the lunchroom and a plastic cup out of his backpack. “Come on, we need to stay on this vibration train.”

And Ryan knows that he needs to be focused, like - physics is really important and all - but he still manages to work out a deal with Shane that for every question he gets right, he gets to ask one in return. 

Through the course of their session, Ryan learns that Shane is afraid of being accidently injected with heroin, he was born in Chicago but his family moved to California when his father accepted a job transfer, that he was six feet tall by the seventh grade and his pediatrician thinks he hasn’t finished growing, that he has one brother named Scott who sounds normal (compared to Shane, at least), and that he once tried playing basketball in the third grade, but quit after breaking his glasses four times in the first three practices.

“Just couldn’t get my mind to focus on where the ball was – I was always thinking about how the ball was doing what it was doing.”

Shane’s rubbing his hands up and down his thighs as he says it, and Ryan gets distracted by the movement.

**********

They’ve been working together for three weeks when Ryan has his next physics exam. They exchanged phone numbers a few weeks before, since some days Ryan had showed up to his physics classroom to find out that Shane had decided they should meet up somewhere else instead. They’ve never texted outside of that, have honestly never spoken outside of the hour or so they spend after school together, but when Ryan finishes working with the weights he has in his basement the night before his test, he has three new messages from Shane in his inbox.

_I’m not lazy, I’m overflowing with potential energy._

_How does a German physicist drink beer? With ein Stein._

_What do physicists do at football games? The wave._

Ryan’s not sure if Shane thinks he’s nervous and is trying to make him laugh, or if Shane is trying to start a conversation the only way he knows how. He stands with his phone in his hand, trying to figure out how to respond, before he settles on going upstairs to shower and watch the Lakers game instead.

**********

He barely sees Shane during the day at school, and when he does, they never interact with each other. Even when they pass each other in the hallway and Ryan looks at him, Shane never looks back. He’s not sure if that’s a Ryan-specific response or if it’s just a Shane-specific habit. 

Ryan had decided against responding to any of Shane’s messages the night before. It hadn’t ended up being a definitive decision; the Lakers game had gone on a lot later than he should’ve been awake, so he’d collapsed into bed as soon as it ended without even looking at his phone again. 

The morning had been the typical rush to get out of the house to get to school on time, so he didn’t even think of Shane’s messages again until he was in his history class, trying to go over his physics notes behind his textbook. 

Ryan finds one new text in his inbox before he goes in to take his test.

_The physics is theoretical, but the success is real. Good luck!_

**********

Ryan gets his exam back two days later; he gets a 90%. 

“I see that your sessions with Mr. Madej have been very beneficial,” Mr. Bennett says. “Your exam grade is excellent, and your homework has been impeccable. With this progress, you’ll be playing again in no time.”

Ryan can’t help but to smile at the rush of adrenaline he feels thinking about being back on the basketball court. There’s a weird sensation in his chest when he thinks about spending his afternoons in the school gym instead of decoding the physics problems Shane has constructed for him that day; he’s guessing he’s just accepted the situation and finally gotten used to the change. 

“Yeah,” Ryan says, “Really soon.”

He wonders if his voice sounds as disappointed to Mr. Bennett as it does to him. 

**********

“Why didn’t you get a 100?” 

It’s the first question Shane asks when Ryan walks in his physics classroom that afternoon. “Which questions did you get wrong? Nothing about Archimedes' principle, right?”

And Ryan knows there’s several different ways he could respond to that question, most simply with how he fucked up a few questions on the Reynolds number. 

Instead, Ryan goes with, “Did you get new glasses?”

Shane looks away immediately, starts turning pages in his physics textbook a lot faster than he can read them. There’s definitely a color to his cheeks. “Yeah, my mom took me yesterday. She said the old ones made me look like a bug.”

“They did, for the record,” Ryan says. These glasses are black and thin-rimmed; his eyes actually look proportional to the rest of his face. “These ones look nice.”

Shane stops flipping pages as Ryan comes to sit down next to him; his leg is still bouncing up and down rapidly. “You think so?” he asks after a few more moments of silence. 

“Yeah,” Ryan responds, watching the blush creep into Shane’s hairline. “They look really good.”

It’s a few more minutes before Ryan realizes that his knee is touching Shane’s thigh; he’s not sure if Shane’s noticed.

Regardless, neither of them move away.

**********

It takes Ryan about five minutes to find Shane during their lunch period the next day. He’s sitting on the bleachers by himself, his head bent over a book and his the food he bought in the cafeteria resting on the bench next to him.

“Hey,” Ryan says, coming to a stop a few rows in front of him. 

Shane actually _flinches_ , like he was expecting something a lot worse than a greeting to be aimed in his direction. It seems to take him a few moments to process that it’s Ryan standing in front of him – even when he starts looking less alarmed, he doesn’t say hello, just stares at him. 

“Uh, sorry, but have to cancel our session today. I gotta be home right after school ends to let someone in to look at the washing machine.” His mom had told him before he’d left for school in the morning, after finding a huge puddle of water in the basement when she’d gone downstairs to put the clothes in the dryer before she’d left for work. 

“What’s wrong with it?” Shane asks, rather than saying ‘okay’ or ‘whatever’ or some other response a normal human being would’ve given.

“What’s wrong with what? The washing machine?” Ryan asks. “I don’t know, it’s like leaking water all over the place.”

“It’s the drain pump,” Shane says, looking back up from his book. “Might have a loose hose clamp, might be a crack in the hose that’s connected to the pump. I’d have to look at it.”

“You want to look at my washing machine?” Ryan asks, shoving his hands into his pocket. He’s trying to process if this entire interaction is as weird as he thinks it is; Shane doesn’t look like he finds it weird _at all._

“I could. It’d save you money on a plumber. And you wouldn’t be letting a stranger in your house.”

Ryan is about to point out that he doesn’t think he could find a stranger person than Shane to let into his house, but he decides against it. “Uh, okay,” Ryan replies, nodding his head. “You can come home with me after school, if you want. Then we can get some physics work in.”

“Okay,” Shane says, and he goes back to reading, his food still untouched next to him.

“Okay,” Ryan replies after a few moments of silence, but it’s mostly to himself.

**********

“Who’s this?”

Ryan is heading in the direction of the school lobby with Mark and TJ, who are both on their way to basketball practice. Ryan wasn’t sure where Shane’s locker was – when he’s seen Shane in the hallways at all he’s normally rushing down them, not making eye contact with anyone - but he fingers it out when they’re walking and they see Shane pulling a jacket out of a locker a few feet ahead of them. 

“Hey,” Ryan says, stopping a few footsteps away. He hasn’t mentioned Shane to Mark or TJ, even though they’re easily his closest friends in and out of basketball. They know that he’s benched, obviously, and they know that he has a physics tutor in school who’s been helping him to pull his grade up, but that’s about it. Shane flinches again, looking back and forth between him and Mark and TJ like he isn’t sure which one of them is going to hold and which one of them is going to punch. 

“Make a new friend?” Mark asks carefully, looking at the frankly horrified expression on Shane’s face. It doesn’t exactly testify to a rousing friendship between them. Shane’s wearing a yellow shirt that says something about matter and energy under a red plaid shirt; the colors clash horribly. 

“This is Shane, he’s been helping me with physics,” Ryan says, motioning in Shane’s direction. 

“Cool,” TJ says slowly after Shane grabs onto his glasses like he thinks someone is about to grab them off his face and snap them in two. “I guess, we’ll see you guys around.”

Except instead of TJ and Mark, Shane’s the one who turns around and high tales it out of there before anyone has the chance to say anything else.

**********

Ryan isn’t sure if Shane’s departure means that he’s forgoing checking out his washing machine, but Ryan ends up finding him loitering in the school lobby, presumably waiting for him, his hands gripping the straps on his backpack. 

“Sorry,” Shane says when Ryan approaches him, slowly, not sure if Shane’s going to run again. “I was weird.”

“You’re always weird,” Ryan says, but he’s smiling when he says it, and he’s honestly amazed when Shane looks at him and smiles back. 

**********

Ryan lives just over a mile from school. His mom and dad don’t get home until after five, so he’s always walked or taken the bus. Ryan had spent the rest of the day after talking with Shane at lunch settled on the fact that the walk home was going to be some of the most awkward minutes of his life, and wondering what the hell else they have to talk about other than physics.

So Ryan brings up the Bermuda Triangle.

“So wait a second, let me get this straight, dude. You don’t believe in ghosts, but you believe in aliens,” he says, tightening his grip on the straps of his backpack.

“These are two entirely different conversations,” Shane replies. He walks with his head bent, both straps of his backpack over his shoulders. “Ghosts are not real. Aliens are definitely real. But aliens are definitely not abducting anyone from some small stretch of water. The Bermuda Triangle barely exists as more than anything but a patch of ocean between Puerto Rico, Miami, and Bermuda.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s not aliens,” Ryan says. “But there’s definitely something suspicious going on. Have you read any of the stories about all the strange disappearances that have happened there? We’re talking planes, naval ships – that shit doesn’t just disappear.”

“Boats sink,” Shane says. He actually stops walking for a second, like his brain and his legs can’t work this hard at the same time. “Are you trying to tell me that boats don’t sink, and planes don’t crash into the ocean?”

“No, but there’s a lot more that disappear in the Bermuda Triangle.” Ryan stops to look back at him. He has to admit Shane’s expression would be ten times funnier if he still had his old glasses.

“And you have the statistics to prove that?” Shane asks, finally starting to move again. It only takes a second for him to catch up.

“No,” Ryan says. As hard as he’s tried, he can’t manage to keep the smile off his face. “But trust me, I can get them.”

“That’s kind of what I’m worried about.”

**********

Shane spends about four minutes poking in and around the washing machine before he steps back and places his hands on his hips. Ryan has just gotten off the phone with the plumber to tell him that they figured out what was wrong, no need to come. Thankfully, he’d gotten caught up at another job and hadn’t even started heading over yet. 

“Get me some laundry.”

Ryan just stares as Shane does it – he’s not going to pretend that he’s ever spent this much time with his washing machine, so he just has to go on faith that Shane knows what the hell he’s doing and whatever it is, it’s not making anything worse. 

But an hour later, after they’ve used an empty tissue box and matches to demonstrate the principle behind vortexes, the clothes are clean and the floor is dry. 

“I can’t believe you actually fixed it,” Ryan says, as he starts pulling out clothes and throwing them into the dryer.

“I can’t believe you doubted me,” Shane replies as Ryan starts the machine, and Ryan can’t help but laugh. 

It’s an honestly awkward conversation when he calls his mom a few minutes later to tell her that a friend she’s never met before had fixed the washing machine by just twisting some piece that had come loose, so he’d called and canceled the plumber.

“Who is this?” his mother asks after a few moments of (definitely judgmental) silence.

“His name is Shane,” Ryan replies, lowering his voice just a little, even though he doesn’t think that Shane can hear him from where he’s working at the kitchen table. “He’s the guy that’s been helping me get my physics grade up.”

“Is he single?” his mom asks immediately, her tune changing entirely.

“Mom!” Ryan exclaims, feeling the heat spread over his cheeks. He knows that Shane definitely can’t hear his mom, but he can’t believe her mind even went in that direction. He’s tempted to explain to her that he doesn’t even think he and Shane are friends, let alone anything more than that. 

“Well, whatever, not your mom’s business. But make sure you invite him to stay for dinner,” she responds in a tone that’s way too cheerful. “It’s the least that we could do.”

And then she hangs up the phone.

**********

It turns out that Shane can’t stay for dinner; apparently he takes a mathematical physics class at the community college on Wednesday nights, so his mom has to pick him up from Ryan’s house and drive him over to the campus. 

They’re still waiting for her, sitting on the living room floor and looking over some diagrams that Shane drew about vortexes, when Ryan’s parents get home from work. 

“We can’t begin to thank you enough,” Mrs. Bergara says, a huge grin on her face. Ryan glares at her. “Please come back anytime. We owe you dinner, at the least.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Shane replies, looking as uncomfortable as Ryan as ever seen him. He wonders if he’s ever interacted with someone else’s mom before – if he doesn’t have any friends, he guesses he’s not spending a lot of time with other people’s mothers.

Thankfully Shane gets distracted by the grandfather clock they have in the living room, so he doesn’t notice when Ryan’s mother mouths “he’s so cute!” at him, and Ryan rolls his eyes back at her.

**********

The only time that Ryan really gets to play basketball now outside of his driveway is during gym class. The school athletes are generally split into two phys-ed classes, and the gym teachers tend to let them fuck off without comment as long as they’re not doing anything too rowdy. Ryan normally spends his gym classes in the work out room or playing basketball in the gym; he’s been playing basketball more often than not nowadays, since it’s really the only time he gets to play with other people. 

“Have you convinced him to try out for the team? We could use his height, even if he seems pretty fucking strange,” TJ says.

Ryan initially has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s just set himself up for a shot at the foul line, and he sinks it before he follows TJ’s gaze and notices Shane sitting on the bleachers. He’s got a notebook sitting in his lap and a pen in one hand, and he’s squinting so hard Ryan isn’t entirely sure what he’s looking at. 

“No,” Ryan replies, straightening up. He catches a pass from one of the guys who’s standing under the basket rebounding. “And that's not very cool, man.”

“Trust me, Ryan, I’m not saying it like it’s a bad thing,” TJ says. He goes in for a layup and catches the rebound off Ryan’s next shot, passing it back across the court to him. 

“But it’s true,” he adds, when he meets Ryan back on the foul line. Ryan glances back at Shane, who’s looking down and writing something in his notebook. 

Even from here, Ryan can see that he’s wearing a purple shirt with an atom on it under a yellow plaid shirt. 

Ryan decides it’s easier to just agree with him.

**********

“Those are for you. And for your family.”

There’s a tin of what looks like homemade cookies sitting in Ryan’s spot at their lab desk when they meet up after school that day.

“Thank you?” he says, sitting down slowly and dropping his backpack on the floor. He leans in closer to take a look at them through the top of the clear container – they don’t look like a failed physics experiment, and Ryan doesn’t think that Shane would be trying to poison him. Or his family. 

“My mom can’t believe I went over to someone’s house and didn’t bring anything.” Shane actually looks like he’s disappointed in himself; maybe he feels like he failed engaging in a normal social custom, even though TJ and Mark have been over to Ryan’s house hundreds of times, and neither of them have ever brought anything. Except for some shitty beers they hid in sweatshirts, and a bottle of peppermint vodka that was hidden in the back of Ryan’s closet for close to half a year because it was so painful to choke down. “In my defense, I hadn’t had prior knowledge of the invitation or I would’ve thought of it.”

“Uh, you brought your humongous brain and used it to fix our washing machine, saving us hundreds of dollars,” Ryan says, popping one of the cookies in his mouth. They’re double chocolate chip, and they melt like fudge in his mouth. “I think the two even out somewhere.”

Shane nods, but it looks like he’s still unsure, so Ryan decides to change the subject.

“Why’d you come by gym class today?” Ryan asks, picking another one out of the container. He makes a mental note to lift some weights in the basement when he gets home even though he already got exercise in today. “Thinking of joining the basketball team? Using those long legs for something other than carrying your physics-filled brain around?”

“I told you already, I can’t play basketball,” Shane says. “My hand-eye coordination is close to nonexistent. And I just got these new glasses - it would be a shame to part with them so soon. No, I actually went for physics. Speaking of which, we should be outside already.”

“Outside for what?” Ryan asks. He was thinking of having another cookie – he was definitely not thinking of moving. 

“You’ll see,” Shane replies, and he’s got a small grin on his face.

Ryan feels helpless to try to argue. 

**********

There are two basketball hoops in the parking lot. Neither of them have nets, and from what Ryan knows they’re never used except for on weekends because all the teachers park underneath them, but since it’s after normal school hours most of the cars are gone and the parking lot is almost completely vacant. There’s a basketball resting on the concrete between them.

“Today,” Shane starts as they continue to walk towards them, “today, you play basketball.”

Apparently, there’s a number of physics principles that exist in basketball. Shane has him practice his shots while explaining to him projectile motion, velocity and gravity. He even has a diagram that shows the typical trajectory that a basketball player (Ryan assumes that he’s the stick figure doodled on one side of the paper) might travel as he makes a jump. He explains a formula that’s used for linear motion and constant acceleration, and has Ryan apply it while he takes shots at different spots, taking into consideration how far away he is while Shane uses a lever on the back to change the height of one of the hoops.

“This was killer, man,” Ryan says once they’ve finished. He’s broken just a hint of a sweat; maybe he doesn’t need to hit the weights when he gets home after all. “I’ve never thought about physics in basketball before.”

“Thanks,” Shane says. He borrowed the basketball from the phys-ed department, and he has to go back inside to return it. Ryan had offered, but Shane didn’t want anyone to think he’d stolen it and Ryan was giving them an imposter basketball (or some logic similar to that that Ryan wasn’t going to try to argue with). “I know physics isn’t cool, but you know, as a tutor, I hope I can get you to like it. At least a little bit.”

“I like it,” Ryan says, maybe a little too quickly. He feels his face color.

Shane looks over at him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

**********

Ryan has another exam two days later. Shane doesn’t send him any texts the night before.

He goes to sleep that night, unable to shake the feeling of disappointment.

**********

“And with that, Mr. Bergara, you have a B average in this class,” Mr. Bennett says.

Ryan’s mind can barely work fast enough to process everything that’s going on. There’s a red, circled 97 on the exam in his hands, and that means he’s officially regained his spot on the basketball team. 

“I can’t believe this,” he says. The smile on his face is so wide it hurts his cheeks. 

“Well you’ve worked hard for it. I know how much time you and Mr. Madej have been spending together; I’m happy to see that it paid off,” he says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Yeah, it’s been good. For my grade, obviously, working with Shane has been good. So definitely, I plan on doing it. I mean. Plan to keep working with Shane, that is. For my grade, my physics grade.”

Mr. Bennett is giving him a strange look, so Ryan just thanks him and leaves.

**********

“A ninety-seven percent. That’s an A+,” Shane says, looking pleased as he flips through Ryan’s test (presumably) to see what he got wrong.

“Yeah, I feel like I gamed the system. I barely get grades this good in my other classes, let alone physics.” Shane’s not looking at Ryan; he’s reading over Mr. Bennett’s comments on the question that he got wrong. “Uh, so I actually have to head over to basketball practice now, since I’m not benched anymore,” he says to the top of Shane’s head. 

“Okay,” Shane replies, handing the test back to Ryan. “Don’t forget to use the force.”

Ryan laughs. “I won’t.” He doesn’t know why he feels so nervous; he digs his fists into the pockets of his jeans. “So I know you have like, your super smart college classes and shit, but we’re gonna have to figure out a time that works for both of us.”

“A time for what?” Shane asks, his brows furrowed in what looks like genuine confusion. He’s leaning against the lab desk, so at least he’s not towering over Ryan right now.

Ryan widens his eyes, thinking the answer should be obvious. “For tutoring me in physics, dude,” he says.

“You want me to keep tutoring you?” Shane asks, like he’s not too sure he heard Ryan right. “Even though you’re back on the team?” 

“Of course I do,” Ryan says. He looks away, unable to maintain Shane’s eye contact. He always has this really intense look in his eyes – sometimes it feels too much for Ryan. “I mean, physics probably isn’t going to get easier, and I’m taking it all year. I don’t want to get lost in the sauce, you know, then all of our work will have been for nothing and I’ll be benched again. 

“Plus, it’s definitely one of my new life goals to convince you that ghosts are real, so...” 

Shane laughs, “I can promise you, no matter how hard you try, that’s never going to happen.”

Except Shane is smiling, and Ryan is smiling.

And Ryan has never been a quitter. 

**********

They start meeting during their shared lunch hour the first few days of the week, and during a study hall that they both have during seventh period on Thursday, and after school on Friday, which is the only day Ryan doesn’t have basketball practice.

His friends, Mark and TJ especially, start giving him strange looks when he starts ditching them during the day to go to the library or to meet Shane on the bleachers. It’s harder for Shane to use as hands-on approaches of teaching during the school day when there are teachers and students everywhere that “might not appreciate his methods”, but he still finds ways to make friction about sex so Ryan is still managing to figure the concepts out.

“You guys have to meet up…for physics?” TJ asks, an eyebrow raised at him as he shoves the sandwich he bought in the cafeteria into his backpack.

“Yeah,” Ryan replies, struggling to zip it closed with all the papers he has crammed inside. “I told you, man. For physics.”

Mark nods. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

**********

Ryan plays in his first game since the beginning of October the week after he starts practicing with the team again. His body had been thrumming with nervous energy all day; it’s been over six weeks since the last time he faced opponents on a court, since the last time he had people cheering for him in the stands, since the last time so much was being demanded of him physically.

But he’s ready; he knows he is. 

“Are you going to invite him to a game sometime?” TJ asks. They’re lacing up their shoes side by side in the locker room, already dressed in their uniforms.

Ryan doesn’t respond until he’s tightened the knots for a second time, pulling as hard as he can. “Who’s ‘him’?”

“Uh, Shane? The dude you’re spending all your time with?” TJ asks. He straightens up and looks down at Ryan. 

“We’re not spending all our time together,” Ryan replies, because they’re not. It’s just at school, really, since basketball is taking up so much more of Ryan’s time now, and they spend the entire time discussing physics anyway, it’s not like they’re even hanging out or anything friendly when they’re together, and all of that is besides the point, honestly. It’s not like they’re hanging out on weekends or at night, or going to each other’s houses or anything. 

“Uh, you basically are,” TJ replies, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Dude, I told you already,” Ryan responds, sitting up in his locker and stretching out his neck. “We have to. For physics.”

“Man, Ryan,” TJ says, shaking his head and clapping a hand down on Ryan’s shoulder, squeezing just a little. “You’ve got it bad.”

Ryan pretends he doesn’t hear him, even though he feels the color in his cheeks. He just hopes TJ doesn’t see it, too.

**********

One of the benefits of Ryan and Shane working on physics during school hours is that they’re actually together sometimes during the day, like if they go to the cafeteria to buy lunch together or if one of them needs to stop at their locker to switch their books.

So Ryan’s standing next to Shame, watching him cram way more notebooks than should be necessary for school into his backpack, the next time Louis, one of the seniors that Ryan had played basketball with last year but who’d gotten cut from the team this season, comes out of nowhere and grabs Shane’s glasses off his face.

Shane immediately shoots up, his hands going to his cheeks, but he doesn’t do or say anything else. He doesn’t even look that surprised. 

“Looking for something, loser?” Louis asks, holding the glasses between two fingers, just out of Shane’s reach and high enough for them to break if he lets go. 

“What the fuck are you doing, Louis?” Ryan asks, taking a step in his direction. 

Louis’s eyes widen when he realizes who he is; it’s like he didn’t even notice Ryan’s been standing there. “Ryan? What the hell are you doing hanging out with him?” 

“Give back the glasses and fuck off,” Ryan says, rather than answering the question. 

There’re a few seconds that Louis looks back and forth between the two of them when Ryan thinks he’s honestly going to drop Shane's glasses or snap them in half. He can’t deny that a large part of him is shocked when Louis slowly holds them out in his, not Shane’s, direction. Ryan might not consider himself popular, but he’s friends with a hell of a lot of seniors who have a lot more say about what goes on in school than Louis does - he has to know when he’s beat. 

“You don’t need to stick up for me,” Shane says, after Louis is gone and his glasses are securely back on his face.

Ryan was honestly expecting a ‘thank you’, or some other expression of gratitude since he prevented Shane from walking around school completely blind for the rest of the day, and saved him probably two hundred dollars on a new pair of glasses. “Um, I'm going to start with - you're welcome,” he says. “And you shouldn’t just stand there and take that shit, dude. Fight back or something.”

“You really think I’d be capable of defending myself against a guy like him?” Shane asks. He doesn’t wait for Ryan to respond. “I told you, there’s no coordination in these arms. With my luck I’d manage to punch myself, or I would just flail around like one of those inflatable tube men at a car dealership.”

“People can't treat you that way,” Ryan says, annoyed. “You’re ten times smarter than everyone at this school combined. You shouldn’t let them.”

“You don’t understand,” Shane says, and Ryan is surprised that he actually sounds a bit angry. “You’ve never been picked on, have you?” Again, he doesn’t give Ryan any time to reply. “Well I have, _a lot_. And trust me, most of the time it’s easier to just stand there and take it. Trust me, there's an extremely limited part of my school day that consists of directly interacting with any people, including teachers. I know I’m weird, and I know I’m socially awkward, and I know my clothes never match and I’m clumsy because my limbs are so long, and I know nothing you or I can do is going to change that.”

“Well maybe I want to change that,” Ryan says, taking a step forward. “Maybe I don’t want people to go around thinking it’s okay to treat you like shit all the time.”

“Why do you care how anyone treats me?” Shane asks.

“Because I like you,” Ryan says, angry. He’s not sure who looks more stunned, him or Shane. He feels his heart clench in his chest. “Because - because we’re friends, and friends stand up for their friends when people are being assholes to them.”

“We’re friends?” Shane asks. He says it hesitantly; it’s almost like he doesn’t believe he heard what Ryan said.

“Yes, friends,” Ryan says. He says it as calmly and confidently as he can, even though the rapid beating of his heart is telling him something a little different. “And I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be explaining to me how having sex is going to help me figure out the spring constant of a mattress.”

Shane laughs, thank the basketball gods, and Ryan finally feels like he can breathe again.

**********

Ryan turns eighteen on the Wednesday during Thanksgiving break. His parents take him out to an early dinner, and then he spends the rest of the night hanging out with Mark and TJ and some of the other guys from the basketball team at TJ’s house.

They’re just sitting downstairs playing video games, drinking beers that Mark managed to sneak in to TJ’s basement. Ryan’s been watching more than participating so far, more content to relax with his phone clutched in his hand, checking the screen every few seconds to see if he has any new messages.

Shane doesn’t know it’s his birthday, so he shouldn’t be expecting to hear from him. They’d met up the day before, the last time before break, and Ryan had thought about saying something, but it seemed weird to just bring up in conversation that his birthday was tomorrow. He considered the fact that Shane’s birthday could’ve passed since they’ve been working together, and he wouldn’t have known, and honestly, no one else in school probably would’ve known either. 

It’s especially shitty too, since Ryan thinks about how he never responded to Shane that night before his physics exam, and maybe Shane wouldn’t consider texting him again outside of changing their met-up location. He feels like a dick when he thinks back to it, and he tries not to think about it honestly, not sure what he was thinking at the time, not sure what he was so afraid of.

Ryan’s starting to feel a little buzzed when a part of his mind takes over and says “fuck it”, and he texts Shane. 

_hey_

His leg starts jostling up and down as soon as he presses send. Ryan tries to pay attention to the game his friends are playing, tries to get himself back into the conversation and looking anywhere but at the black screen on his phone.

When he finally feels it vibrate in his lap, it feels like entire days have passed, and he almost knocks it onto the floor with how quickly he reaches for it.

_Hey Ryan. Did you get photographic proof that the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is haunted?_

Ryan laughs to himself when he reads the message. He’d spent part of their session the day before researching the hotel on his phone, because one of his cousins had talked about it after going to a wedding there and Shane had said he’d gone there for some physics presentation a few months ago. His cousin claimed to have some picture that shows it’s haunted that he has yet to send Ryan, so Ryan had been reading aloud stories of some people who have claimed to see Marilyn Monroe’s ghost in the hotel, which he thought was absolutely insane. Shane did not look nearly as impressed. 

_no, cousin didn’t text it yet :( sucks, leaving me hanging on my birthday_

Ryan’s honestly a little too far gone to figure out if he’s being subtle. A big part of him doesn’t want to be. 

It’s awhile before his phone vibrates again. He stopped drinking some time before that, since his mom is on her way over to pick him up, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving so it’s not like he can be hungover. 

He’s standing by himself in TJ’s driveway, watching his mom’s car turn into the street when he feels it go off in his pocket. 

_Well, congratulations on traveling another 7 billion km through space on our trip around the galactic core._

And then another message a few seconds later.

_:)_

When Ryan falls asleep in his bed that night, his phone is still in his hand, and Shane’s texts are still illuminating the screen.

**********

It’s finally December, and Ryan and Shane are together after school the next day, which is thankfully a Friday. They have midterms starting in two weeks, including one for his physics class. Ryan has officially managed to get his grade up to an A-, and if he does well on the midterm, he might actually be able to pull out an A for the semester. 

“I’m exhausted,” Ryan says, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. He’d had two basketball games this week, along with practice every day, and a huge paper for his English class that was due on Wednesday that he’d ended up having to pull an all-nighter to finish. He feels completely drained, physically and mentally. “I think my brain is breaking.”

“We don’t have to work today,” Shane says, stopping whatever he was writing. They’d spent the day before discussing Hooke’s Law, taking apart a bunch of different types of pens to look at the springs inside, straightening them out and observing their response to force.

“Do you want to come hang out instead?” Ryan asks, tapping his pen against the edge of the table. It is Friday, after all, so neither of them have school tomorrow, and Shane doesn’t have any classes tonight. “I still have this documentary I rented last weekend about this family in California who actually caught the ghost that’s haunting their house on film. Plus, my mom keeps asking when you’re coming back for dinner – she’s not going to let up on that until you do, by the way.”

“You’re inviting me to your house to hang out?” Shane asks. He looks puzzled, like what Ryan said was a confusing equation that he has to try to figure out. 

“Yeah, if you want to,” Ryan says. He’s not sure he’s ever felt this nervous before, and he’d been the starting guard when his team played in the state title game during the spring season. 

“Okay,” Shane says, still looking a little wide around the eyes, but he turns away to put his textbook in his backpack. “Plus, we’ll be able to test the springs in your mattress.”

Ryan’s not sure how he doesn’t fall out of his chair.

**********

He texts his mom to let her know that Shane will be there for dinner, and he gets about a dozen smiley faces and hearts in return. 

“I’m not bringing anything to your house again,” Shane says as they take off their shoes in the front foyer. “This is bad. Your family is going to think I’m a delinquent.”

“I think my family can take one look at you and figure out that you’re not a delinquent.” He says it to make Shane laugh, since Shane is wearing a shirt that says “May the Mass Times Acceleration Be with You”, and thankfully he does. 

They go downstairs to Ryan’s basement to watch the documentary since his parents won’t be home for a bit, so they won’t be eating dinner until at least seven. His basement is small but finished; his weights are in one corner, and there’s a couch and a television in the other. Shane reads the back of the DVD box while Ryan loads the disc.

“The first documented spirit entity ever captured on film? Like there’s no such thing as computer generated images?” Shane asks. 

“No! Not when you’re a paranormal investigator. There’s like an honor code, dude, you can’t fake that shit,” Ryan replays, pressing the play button on the DVD player. 

“Paranormal investigator? Is that an actual job? Someone will employ you and pay you to do that?” Shane asks, putting the DVD box down on the coffee table and leaning back against the couch cushions. The couch isn’t very large, and it looks so much smaller when Shane is sitting on it. 

“Yes, there’s a ton of television shows about paranormal investigators going to creepy places to find legitimate evidence that ghosts are real,” Ryan says, sitting down on the couch next to him. He instantly starts analyzing if he sat down too close to Shane; there has to be at least a foot of space between them – he thinks that’s a normal amount. 

“This is an entire field I didn’t even realize existed that’s founded on absolute bullshit,” Shane replies - he honestly looks amazed. Ryan can’t help but feel delighted. 

“It’s not bullshit,” Ryan replies, laughing. “And you’re about to get served up a truth pancake; I hope you’re hungry.”

**********

They’re not even thirty minutes into the documentary and Ryan is definitely not feeling as delighted.

Which is, quite frankly, an understatement. 

“Oh fuck,” Ryan says, jumping and covering his eyes with his hands.

“Are you scared? Is this actually scaring you?” Shane asks. He’s spent most of the time passing comments about how easy it would be to fake most of the footage that’s already been shown using some computer programs that you can download off the Internet, and other various scientific principles to disprove most of what is going on. Also, the wind. “Why did you rent it?”

Ryan turns to look over at him, his hands blocking his face so that he can’t see any of the television screen. “To prove to you that ghosts are real?”

“At the stake of your own sanity? And ghosts are not real, again – particle physics proves it,” Shane replies. “Do you want me to turn the lights on?” He’s giving him a bewildered look again; friends being terrified are probably not something that Shane’s used to having to deal with, and he obviously has no idea what response this type of social situation calls for. 

Ryan hadn’t turned the lights on when they’d come down to the basement so there wouldn’t be any glare on the screen, but now he can freely admit that he sincerely regrets that decision. 

“No! The light is at the top of the stairs. Oh fuck, no, don’t go anywhere,” Ryan says. He scoots a little closer to Shane on the couch; he honestly doesn’t care if Shane thinks it’s weird or not.

“Do you need me to…comfort you?” Shane asks. He raises a hand and reaches out in Ryan’s direction, not close enough to touch him, but just hovering in the air between them. 

Ryan attempts to look back towards the screen, like maybe it’s somehow gotten better and not _worse_ , but now it’s showing some violent possession shit that was definitely not mentioned in the movie summary, so he just turns back towards Shane, his eyes wide, and says, “Holy shit.”

And that’s when Shane’s hand comes up to rest on Ryan’s hair, patting his head lightly. Ryan doesn’t think his heart could be beating any faster if it tried. 

“There, there, Ryan. It’s okay,” Shane says. Ryan guesses he’s attempting to be soothing, the pats to his hair light and firm. “Ghosts aren’t real. It’s just a movie.”

“It’s a documentary, so it’s real,” Ryan says, even as he gets used to the weight of Shane’s hand on his head. 

“It’s a movie,” Shane repeats. Some one on the screen screams, so Ryan screams and grabs on to Shane’s wrist, squeezing it for dear life. 

They get through another twenty minutes of the movie before it’s too much and Ryan has to turn it off. He keeps his grip on Shane’s wrist the entire time.

Ryan is going to have to sleep with the light on for months. 

**********

Ryan can’t say that his mom interrogates Shane at dinner or anything like that. She does ask him a lot of questions, and he answers them with a ‘ma’am’ at the end of each sentence, most of which involve a lot of rambling before he gets back to the point. Ryan can tell he’s nervous, like how he was the first day that they met in his physics classroom. His mom keeps glancing over at Ryan, which Shane thankfully doesn’t seem to notice because he barely makes eye contact with anyone. 

“I know you said you’ve already started taking college classes - have you looked at any universities yet? We’ve been trying to get Ryan to, but his basketball schedule makes it so difficult.”

Shane’s sitting next to him at the table, so Ryan moves his right leg so that it’s touching Shane’s under the table.

Shane blushes, but he doesn’t move away. 

“Uh - sorry, ma’am. Could you repeat the question? Thank you. Ma’am.”

**********

Shane helps Ryan clear the table, by which he carries inside all the silverware but none of the plates, because the plates are glass and he’s worried he’s going to drop and break one. 

“You don’t have glass dishes at your house?” Ryan asks as they place the dishes on the kitchen counter.

“We do,” Shane says, grouping all the knives and forks together separately. “But my plate is made of bamboo. It’s biodegradable, and it won’t break if I drop it.”

Ryan has to stop and wonder for a second if Shane is kidding.

He doesn’t think so.

**********

Shane’s mom sends him a text that she’s turning in to Ryan’s street when Ryan’s mom just starts mentioning something about dessert.

“Guess you’ll just have to come back again,” she says, even as Ryan glares at her and she practically twirls back in the direction of the kitchen.

“Thank you, ma’am. It was all very delicious, ma’am,” Shane replies from where he’s kneeling on the ground, tying his shoe laces. Apparently Shane is one of those people who unties his shoe laces every time he takes them off. 

Ryan can’t say he’s surprised. 

“See you at school Monday,” Ryan says as he opens the door. Shane stands and nods. Normally Ryan would high-five any of his other friends as they were leaving, but the one time he’d tried to high-five Shane a few weeks ago, Shane had missed his hand and practically slapped him in the face.

“We didn’t get to test out your mattress,” Shane says, turning back suddenly from his spot on the front steps. He looks distraught.

Ryan chokes on the air in his throat. 

“Next time. Definitely,” he manages to get out.

He’s only happy his mother wasn’t in the room to hear _that._

**********

It’s Tuesday of the next week when Ryan asks Shane if he wants to eat lunch with him and his friends.

“Like, all of us at a lunch table in the cafeteria?” 

Ryan has started to get used to how confused Shane looks when he gets asked about normal things that every other person ever would completely understand. TJ had been the one who’d suggested it, because they’d learned about the dynamics of mechanical oscillation that day, and everyone had gotten a bit lost. And since Shane was going to be explaining it to Ryan _anyway_ …

“Not fair to hog that big brain of his all to yourself,” Mark had said, and Ryan hadn’t been able to come up with a good enough reason not to ask him.

It’s about as awkward as dinner with his parents, because Mark and TJ are definitely like, simultaneously trying to get to know Shane while also trying to figure out if there’s something else going on between him and Ryan, which there is not, as Ryan has told them at least a dozen times.

They don’t seem to believe him. 

“So Shane, are you going to the dance on Friday?” TJ asks, looking at Ryan when he says it.

And Shane being Shane, he doesn’t seem to be picking up on any of it.

“What dance?” Shane asks, not sounding particularly interested in the question. 

“Winter formal? There’re posters all over the school. They’ve mentioned it on the morning announcements every day for like, the last month,” Mark says, slowly and carefully, like a kid this smart probably should be a little more observant than he’s currently demonstrating. 

“Dancing is not my strong suit,” Shane replies as he takes a bite out of his sandwich. The notion doesn’t surprise Ryan in the slightest.

“But on to real matters for discussion,” Shane says, finally making eye contact with TJ. “Who in this school would you most like to have sex with?”

**********

Ryan spends the next half hour listening to Shane explain oscillation to his friends. The rest of the table seems to be hanging on his every word, and Ryan actually blushes watching Shane discuss kinetic energy being transferred between two bodies moving together. He’s honestly half hard by the time Shane’s done, having a really difficult time watching Shane talk about sex and not thinking about having sex, and TJ and Mark’s mouths are half hanging open. They look like they’re in awe.

“Fuck, Ryan, no wonder you’re doing so well in physics,” Mark says, running a hand through his hair. 

“Is this how you’ve been teaching him all semester?” TJ asks. “Shit, I can imagine what we missed out on.”

“You’ve missed nothing,” Ryan says, even as he stretches out his leg so that it’s touching Shane’s under the table. “But you probably would’ve gotten those test questions right about spring constants.”

“Spring constants?” Mark exclaims. “What are you guys doing that involves spring constants?”

“We were planning to check out the ones in Ryan’s mattress last week, but we didn’t get a chance to.”

Ryan spits out all of the water he’s drinking, droplets splashing all over the table.

Shane looks over at him, his eyes wide and alarmed.

TJ leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, a smug grin on his face.

“Shane, Shane…you should come around here more often.”

**********

It’s Thursday before Ryan builds up the courage to bring up the dance again to Shane.

Which is ridiculous, because Ryan had never planned on going, and he’s pretty sure that Shane had zero intentions of going since he didn’t even know about it, and since Ryan’s almost positive that he’s Shane’s only friend he would think that if he’s not going, Shane wouldn’t be going either. 

“So you’re not going to the dance tomorrow, right?” Ryan asks, as they pack up their bags in the library at the end of seventh period. Ryan has to head to Spanish class (which is the worst at the end of the day), while Shane has AP English that Ryan thinks he already took as a junior.

“Did something about me give you the impression that I can dance?” Shane asks. Ryan honestly cannot begin to imagine what Shane would look like dancing – he imagines it would just be a mess of flailing limbs, probably more terrifying than inviting. “No, I think it would be safer for everyone on the dance floor if I wasn’t on it.”

“Are you going?” Shane asks. He’s not looking at Ryan when he says it, but he rarely does when he asks Ryan any questions that don’t directly have to do with physics.

“No,” Ryan says, quickly. He takes a deep breath. “But, uh, a group of guys are heading over to TJ’s in the afternoon to hang out – I think he’s building like a bonfire or something. Do you want to come?” 

“You guys need me to start the fire?” Shane asks, finally making eye contact with him. 

“No. What?” Ryan asks, his brows furrowed. “You can do that?”

“Yes,” Shane replies, looking a little surprised that Ryan thinks there was a chance he couldn’t. “It’s thermodynamics. Physics 101.”

“No,” Ryan says. “No, I’m not asking you to come because you have to, like, do something. I’m asking you to come with me.”

“Oh,” Shane says. He definitely starts blushing, and he breaks the eye contact, quickly. “Oh. Yes, okay. Yes.”

Ryan feels breathless.

“Okay.”

**********

When Shane meets him after school on Friday, Ryan almost doesn’t recognize him. 

First off, he’s not wearing glasses. He has a gray, solid button-down shirt on underneath a soft looking black sweater, and his hair looks like he actually ran a comb through it. He’s got black jeans that cling to his legs; Ryan has to try really hard to keep his eyes on Shane’s face.

His mom had picked him up after school had ended at three, since they weren’t supposed to be at TJ’s until five, so they agreed to meet back at school before and walk over together. Ryan had left school earlier with Mark and TJ and then walked back by himself, so he’s been loitering on one of the sidewalk benches, fucking around on his phone while he waits for Shane to come back.

“My mom,” Shane says, waving in the direction of the car that’s already driving away. “I have contacts. I don’t wear them. You can get infections in your eye that can make you go blind. But my mom bought them and I promised to wear them on special occasions, and my mom had pretty good reasons for this being a special occasion, since I haven’t had plans to hang out with anyone after school since the sixth grade, and even that was for a science project and not because we were friends. And she said I shouldn’t wear any of my science shirts since it’s after school hours and I’m not going to science class, so they’re not relevant. And she made me comb my hair, in case I see someone else’s mom, so I don’t look like a delinquent.” He doesn’t make eye contact with Ryan as he speaks, just rocks back and forth on his heels.

“And I think my mom wants to meet you,” Shane adds, the tips of his ears turning red.

“Definitely,” Ryan replies. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face if he tried. Shane looks up at him, finally – it doesn’t seem to be the answer that Shane was expecting. 

“You want to meet my mom?” Shane asks, still rocking back and forth.

“I mean, I think I should meet your mom. She’s picked you up from my house twice now – I don’t want her to think you’re hanging out with some dumb jock who almost flunked out of his non-honors physics class.”

Shane actually laughs. “She’d probably appreciate the influence on me, actually.”

They walk over to TJ’s together. It’s a good two mile walk from school, and Ryan tries not to be intimidated by how much taller Shane is; he has to look up at him every time he says something. Every few steps their arms brush each other; Ryan’s shoulder is nowhere close to reaching Shane’s.

“Shane, my man,” TJ says, clapping him on the shoulder. It’s not even five o’clock and there’s already a small group gathered in his backyard. Shane flinches, but just slightly – it looks like he tried to control himself, like maybe Shane is starting to get used to people touching him without aiming to torture him; Ryan hopes so, at least. “You’re looking good,” TJ adds, looking Shane up and down. He winks at Ryan when he says it; he has to resist the urge to punch him.

Ryan stops by the cooler to grab them both a beer before they say hi to anyone else. 

“This isn't legal,” Shane comments, even as he takes one of the cans from Ryan and cracks it open.

“I know. But look at it this way - I'm old enough to drive a car, and to vote, and to hold down a job without needing working papers, so I think that makes us old enough to drink,” Ryan says, and he’s not sure if Shane exactly agrees with that logic, but when Ryan takes a sip, so does Shane. He can’t help but wonder if Shane has ever had a beer before. 

They mull around the yard together – Ryan introduces Shane to some of the other guys on the basketball team that he hadn’t met at the one lunch that he’d come to with Ryan. Everyone is nice, can probably tell that Shane is not as used to interacting with others as the rest of them are, because they ask him simple questions about what classes he takes and what extracurriculars he’s in. Most of them don’t even seem to realize that Shane goes to their school until Ryan tells them.

They make their way over to the bonfire, taking some of the vacant seats that have been set up in a circle around it. It’s a cool night for California in December, and the warmth of the fire feels comforting. Shane stretches out his legs in front of him – one of them is shaking incessantly. 

“You don’t have to be nervous,” Ryan says, finishing his beer and sitting the can on the grass next to his chair. He reaches out, putting a hand on Shane’s jostling knee. Ryan squeezes, applying the slightest hint of pressure; it slows down just slightly. “I mean – I understand you’re nervous, and you can be. I just don’t want you to be. Nervous, I mean.”

“I just,” Shane starts. Ryan follows his gaze to where he’s staring at the hand that Ryan has on his knee. He squeezes again, just a little, to see if it will prompt him to keep talking. “I don’t want to come off as weird to your friends. Any weirder than I am already, anyway.” 

He keeps his eyes on Shane’s face, watching the light reflect off his features, the jut of his nose and the curve of his lips, the few strands of hair falling over his forehead. Ryan feels like his heart is coming undone inside of him. 

“I told you,” Ryan says, pushing the words past the dizzying sensation in his chest. “I know you’re weird. And I don’t care, because I like who you are, Shane. I like you a lot.”

He hears Shane take a deep breath, and then Ryan moves, slowly and carefully, his hand up Shane’s thigh until he finds Shane’s hand, lacing their fingers together. He feels Shane’s entire body stiffen. 

“Is this okay?” Ryan asks, rubbing his thumb over Shane’s knuckles. Shane turns his head so that they’re looking at each other, the fire illuminating his face, reflecting off his cheeks.

“Yes,” he replies. His voice sounds breathless.

There’re a few seconds of silence, when it feels like all time and space is suspended between them, when Ryan hears the echo of his heartbeat in his ears, when everyone and anyone, anything and everything disappears all around him, until all there is is him and Shane, and the overwhelming emotion that feels like it’s crashing back and forth between the two of them. 

“I really want to kiss you,” Ryan says, barely above a whisper. 

He has to look away, then, try to take a deep breath as Shane gasps. “I have – uh, I have something planned for us at my house. If you want to head over there. It’s nothing like, I don’t want you to think it’s anything like that. It’s just. - ” Shane’s thumb is running along the lines of his palm, his nail digging in every so often; it’s preventing him from thinking straight, and the words keep getting tangled in his throat. 

“I mean. Have you ever watched the Geminids Meteor Shower?”

**********

Ryan honestly cannot pretend he’s ever given a shit about meteor showers in his life.

He’d maybe found out that the Geminids Meteor Shower even existed when doing a search for science-themed dates in California in December. There were a few interesting things going on at the California Science Center in LA that he considered, and some not very interesting sounding presentations going on at different schools and in different hotels, but none of them had sounded like things that would make for a particularly amazing date (though he’s guessing Shane would disagree with him on that one).

He’d maybe gone online and bought a shitty telescope off Amazon, and maybe his mother had given him a lot of looks when he’d struggled in the backyard trying to put the dumb thing together.

“It’s for science,” he’d said, after she’d watched him for a few minutes trying to screw in one of the pieces, without comment and without offering to help. 

“Of course it is, sweetheart,” she’d said, going back inside, the screen door slamming shut behind her. “Make sure science has some dessert this time.”

He’d maybe gone home from school that Friday and laid out some blankets and pillows in his backyard, right next to the telescope, trying not to freak out about anything or overanalyze what clothes he should change into before walking back over to school way too early. 

But the day, everything, had collided so perfectly.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - Newton’s third law. 

Ryan can only hope.

**********

Ryan is thankfully able to duck out of TJ’s backyard with another two cans of beer jammed into his jacket pockets and without any interaction with anyone else (particularly TJ).

He’d let go of Shane’s hand when they decided to leave, but he takes it again as soon as they come to the end of TJ’s driveway. It’s a little before six, so the sun’s already set, and there’s just over a ten-minute walk to get over to Ryan’s house.

Ryan feels nervous, his heart pounding in his chest, so he rambles on telling Shane everything he’d read about the meteor shower online. 

“I never knew you were so interested in astronomy,” Shane says. “I guess it makes sense with the whole, ‘ghost supernatural’ thing.”

“Uh, ghosts are a totally separate area of study,” Ryan says, laughing. “And I mean, I’m not super interested in astronomy…just thought you might be.”

He sees Shane blush under the dim of the street lights – it’s getting to be a harder and harder struggle to not just stop and kiss him right there – so he decides to ask him if he’s ever been to the Air & Space exhibit at the California Science Center instead.

He has. Of course. 

Ryan’s house is completely dark when he opens his front door. “My parents are at their company Christmas party, so they shouldn’t be home for awhile,” Ryan says as he shuts it behind him. Shane nods, his hands buried in the pocket of his jeans. “My mom knows you’re coming over though; she made us some killer brownies.” He adds it in just in case Shane is worried about parental consent or anything like that, like maybe he shouldn’t even be here if Ryan’s parents aren’t home, but when he looks back at him Shane looks calm, as calm as he thinks either of them can feel right now, so Ryan leads him through the kitchen and out the door to his backyard.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Shane says, his voice low, looking at the set up in front of him. It really isn’t much, honestly, just a few blankets and pillows next to a telescope, but Shane looks completely stunned. It does things to Ryan’s heart he couldn’t even begin to know how to describe. 

“I wanted to,” Ryan replies, sitting down on one of the blankets and looking up at the sky. His heart is beating so fast he feels like he could faint. “Looks like we got a pretty nice night for it too.”

“Yeah,” Shane replies, sitting next to Ryan and laying down on his back; thankfully the blankets that Ryan had found in the basement are big enough to accommodate the length of him. Ryan pulls the beers out of his pocket and sets Shane’s down next to him, cracking open his own and taking a large swallow, hoping some alcohol will help to calm his nerves. “You never know with these California winters.”

Ryan had been worried about the visibility due to their proximity to the city lights and the weather forecast that had mentioned a chance of rain, but the night sky is mostly clear, and he can see the stars shining above him, standing out as the atmosphere grows darker. The chance of meteor sightings are supposed to increase as it gets later - at least that’s what he’d read online, ‘cause it’s not like he’s ever taken astronomy - but the sky looks so bright and beautiful already, it’s hard to not be awed by it even in its stillness.

“I want to, by the way,” Shane says after long minutes have passed, his voice quiet but breaking through the silence surrounding them.

“Want to what?” Ryan asks. He feels dazed almost, lost in the total wonders of the universe as his mind struggles to comprehend how many stars he can see at this exact moment in time. Or maybe the effects of the alcohol are finally starting to set it. 

“I want to kiss you too.”

When Ryan looks over at him Shane’s already sitting up, his knees bent and his arms wrapped around them. They’re close now, maybe the closest they’ve ever been, their faces separated by not more than a few inches. Shane’s looking at him intently; they’ve had time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness so Ryan can see all his features, the hint of stubble on his chin, the softness in his gaze. 

“I’ve never…” he starts, but Ryan leans forward, hovering for a moment just far enough away that he can feel Shane’s breath against his skin. 

“It’s okay,” Ryan whispers when there’s only a moment between their mouths, before his eyes drift shut and he closes the distance between them. 

He pulls away after only a second or two, just a brief touch of lips as light as he can make it with how much he wants, but he can feel the sensation, feel Shane, coursing through his veins, lighting up his skin. Shane’s mouth is open just a little, his eyes wide when Ryan looks at him. Ryan feels like his head is spinning, an overwhelming emotion suffocating him.

“Can I?” Ryan asks, softly, and Shane nods his head.

“Yes.”

So Ryan leans in again, pressing their mouths together, tilting his head and opening just a little. His hand comes up and rests on Shane’s cheek, his fingers threading into his hair. Shane opens his mouth to match, and Ryan turns his body so that he can feel the heat radiating off Shane sink into his skin. He lets his tongue slip through his lips, just a touch, just a taste of the inside of Shane’s mouth.

“Okay?” Ryan gasps, fighting every desire in his body and pulling away, leaning their foreheads together so he can try to catch his breath.

“Yes,” Shane replies, and the sound is so desperate, and before Ryan moves Shane is leaning back in and kissing him again. There’s not a paramount of skill behind the movements, but Shane seems to follow Ryan’s lead, copying what he does, tilting his head and opening up to him, his tongue running over Ryan’s so that he can’t help but to moan into his mouth. 

He separates them just long enough to lay them down and pull their bodies together, their heads resting on pillows and their hearts beating into each’s other chests. Shane’s hand is on the back of his neck, pulling him closer and pulling him in, the kiss getting deeper, harder. Ryan’s knee slips between Shane’s legs, and he can immediately feel the length of Shane against him, thick and warm and hard against his thigh.

Ryan can’t focus on anything more than kissing Shane, like his entire world has shrunken down to the touch of their lips, to the feel of Shane’s body against his. He’s not sure how he’s ever going to stop, how any other feeling is going to be enough compared to how he feels here and now, just kissing Shane. There’s a meteor shower going on over their heads, and he’s not sure how any of it is supposed to be as amazing as it is when he traces over the smooth inside of Shane’s mouth and breathes in the desperate moan from his lips.

Ryan pushes himself up on his elbow, fighting every urge in his body to straddle Shane’s legs, to keep things as easy and innocent as he can. His tongue chases Shane’s as Shane cradles his face in his hands, his fingers long and firm, his thumbs caressing the skin on his cheekbones. He kisses Shane as deeply as he can, with as much emotion as he can translate into the glide of his lips, tasting Shane and drinking him in. Ryan’s leg is intertwined with Shane’s, his hand on the smooth skin of Shane’s neck – he can’t get enough of feeling him, touching him. His entire body is straining to be as close to Shane as possible for any two people to be with each other. 

Ryan has no idea how long they’re there, making out underneath a December California sky, but it’s so long he feels his lips as they become numb and raw, so long that he’s lighted-headed because he doesn’t want to separate from Shane long enough to catch his breath. Ryan’s head swims with the rush of emotion and sensation, Shane’s tongue running over the sensitive skin of his lip before diving back in; he can’t get enough, his entire being just wants.

His fingers trail down Shane’s spine, desperate to feel the warmth of skin again skin, when he suddenly feels Shane’s entire body shake, shuddering against him. Shane nips at his lip and Ryan gasps at just the hint of pain and pleasure, his body aching, needing more, before Shane lets out a strangled “Fuck” against his mouth. 

“Are you okay?” Ryan asks, alarmed, pulling away and sitting up as Shane covers his face with his hands and rolls onto his back, his legs bent awkwardly.

“Did you just…?” he starts, and he hears Shane groan from behind his fingers. 

“Dude, that is so fucking hot,” Ryan says, even as he tries to catch his breath, reaching for Shane’s hands and threading their fingers together so he can pull them away and see Shane’s face. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Hot?” Shane asks. "I don't think I know what you mean by 'hot'."

“Shane,” Ryan says, softly. He lays back down so that their heads are sharing one pillow, using his hand to turn Shane’s face so that he’s facing him, even though his eyes are still closed. “That was fucking amazing, and I wish I could’ve seen it.”

“You’re being serious?” Shane asks, opening his eyes slowly. Ryan leans in and kisses him again, gentle and lingering, his hand firm on Shane’s face so that he can’t try to turn his head and look away.

“Yes, dude, I am so into you,” Ryan replies, brushing away a piece of stray hair that’s falling over Shane’s forehead. His lips are red and raw; Ryan just wants to be kissing him again. 

“So none of this is theoretical?” Shane asks, a small smile on his face even as he buries his head into the crook of Ryan’s neck, and Ryan wraps an arm around his waist.

“Just the physics,” he says, placing a kiss on the top of Shane’s head and looking back up towards the sky.

“Oh, hey. There’s a meteor.”

**********

Ryan doesn’t have basketball practice on Monday since it’s almost midterms. They’d agreed to meet up after school, and Ryan shuts the door behind him when he enters his physics classroom.

Shane’s sitting at their usual lab desk, glasses firmly back on his face, shirt declaring how everything happens for a reason, and how that reason is usually physics, standing out underneath his jean jacket. 

Ryan definitely can’t argue with that.

He slides in to Shane’s lap, smiling at the look of surprise he gets as Ryan straddles his legs and Shane’s hands come to rest on his hips, as he takes Shane’s face in both hands and kisses him, light but lasting. He’d had to see Shane at school all day, had to sit with him through an entire lunch period without being able to kiss him. 

It’d been a nightmare.

“How was the rest of your day?” Ryan asks, trailing kisses along Shane’s jaw as his hands tighten on his hips.

“I got an 104 on my AP calculus test,” Shane says, even as his eyelids flutter closed and Ryan’s mouth finds the soft skin of his ear. 

“Corrected the teacher?” Ryan asks, sucking the lobe into his mouth and biting just a little. 

“Yes,” Shane replies, soft and desperate. 

Ryan pulls away then, feeling Shane as he stiffens against his thigh. He’d promised Shane that next time he made him come, it would be the both of them, and they’d be coming together. Ryan had said that they could take their time getting there, especially since Shane had just had his first kiss let alone first anything else, but he hadn’t been as keen on waiting as Ryan would have expected. 

“You’re really sure about this?” Shane asks as his eyes open and Ryan runs his hands up and down his thighs. “You’ve been at school all day, you’ve probably seen Patrick Colton in the hallway a dozen times…”

“Yes, dude. Beyond sure. We’re dating, as long as you want us to be,” Ryan says, holding Shane’s gaze, stopping his hands at Shane’s waist and running his thumb over the soft skin on his hip.

“Yes,” Shane says. “I want us to be.”

“Awesome,” Ryan replies, smiling. “Because I haven’t convinced you that ghosts are real yet. And we still haven’t figured out the spring constant of my mattress, so. A lot of ground left to cover.”

“One of those things is never going to happen,” Shane replies, pulling Ryan’s body in closer to him.

“Which one?” Ryan asks, leaning in again, his hands caressing Shane’s face. 

“I think you can figure this one out without me explaining it to you,” Shane replies.

And then he leans in to kiss Ryan again. 


End file.
